I watched an old episode of Dragons Den earlier and remembered this invention by Natalie Ellis, which was a non-spill dog bowl. She had sold an impressive 22,000 units in 5 months. The Dragons didn’t seem to spot the potential in the product and one made a stupid comment that “the market is too small”. What? Are we talking about the multi-million pound and indeed dollar pet industry? Indeed the US market is worth $11 billion!
The Dragons dug a bit deeper into Natalie’s past and found that her last business was liquidated. They looked to put some of the blame down to Natalie and not paying her VAT bills, but Natalie insisted it was a mistake on the VAT man’s part. The atmosphere changed when they learned that Natalie also had a stroke which incapacitated her for a significant period of time.
No Dragons invested and James Caan made one of those smart alec comments the Dragons are prone to: “Have you ever heard of the saying that America is the graveyard of British businesses?”. Let’s be honest we all know what he means and it usually referred to UK music act, but it sounded like he had just made it up on the spot. Natalie replied “No.”
The upshot is that in less than four months Natalie’s rebranded Road Refresher had turned over £1 million! And the highlight was surely when President Obama ordered one for his own pets in the White House!
I know it is easy in hindsight (but I only checked how it got it on today) but I cannot believe they didn’t invest in this product. I am sure that on Shark Tank, the Infomercial king, Kevin Harrington would have snapped this product up as it obviously had potential and legs, if you pardon the pun.
I do think this is now part of the real fun of watching shows like Dragons Den and the superior Shark Tank... watch an old episode and decide if there was a product they didn’t invest in that you thought was great and see how it has fared. Or if they invested in a crazy one like the Numbrella and see how it got on.
You can watch Natalie’s pitch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/natalieellis.shtml full in the knowledge that she ended up with a winner on her hands.
Well done!
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